


Experimental log: Sophie

by GreenNebulae



Category: The Big Bang Theory (TV)
Genre: Angst, Brain tumor, But mostly angst, Cancer, Coping, Death of a Parent, Future Fic, Gen, I made people cry, Mourning, Sheldon dies before the story starts, Small bits of fluff, Tearjerker, sheldon and amy kid, sorrynotsorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-09-02 04:16:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20269885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenNebulae/pseuds/GreenNebulae
Summary: Two months after her father passes away, she finds it.It’s a small box in her father’s collection of things, no different from the dozens of others that mom has been going through to get rid of, except this one has her name on it in black marker.Experimental Log:Sophie Cooper





	Experimental log: Sophie

**Author's Note:**

> This made me cry writing it, so I kinda hope you get teary reading it. This is unbetaed so I apologize in advance if anything is spelled wrong.

Two months after her father passes away, she finds it.

It’s a small box in her father’s collection of things, no different from the dozens of others that mom has been going through to get rid of, except this one has her name on it in black marker.

_Experimental Log: Sophie Cooper_

She opens it hesitantly. She’d hate to find out if Uncle Leonard’s jokes were true, and he really only had her to do experiments on (and wanted a matching set). Inside, she finds a couple of miscellaneous items. A few toys, few letters, a drawing she must’ve made as a toddler, a crayon mark over a printed document, a Dr. Seuss book, a voice recorder, a glove, and a memory card.

She takes the box to her room and leaves it on her dresser.

“Mom,” she asks the next day over breakfast, curiosity getting the better of her. “Do we have an adapter for this memory card?” Mom takes it from her and flips it in her hands. “I think I do at the office. I can bring it home tonight for you,”  
“Thanks!” 

The transfer of all the files took over a day, which is ridiculous and slowed her computer down to a snail’s crawl. Seriously, he has thousands of audio files on this. She clicks on the first one, hoping this isn’t all a waste of time. It’s not like she misses her dad. He was barely even a person at the end. No one did anything but cry over him.

That’s mean. She takes it back. But on a serious note, she didn’t really know her father. Sure she met him, but she remembers him most at the end of a losing battle with brain cancer. He wasn’t himself. He wasn’t ever really there. She didn’t even cry at the funeral, not even when Halley did. She saw his Nobel acceptance, and a few Youtube videos; she even watched fun with flags (Disaster by the way-not recommended) but she can’t piece the two together. There was Sheldon Cooper and there was Dad. She’d never miss either of them. It’s sad that they died, but she didn’t have anything to mourn. 

“Sheldon Cooper,” the first recording starts, and she twirls her pencil around to get started on her algebra homework.

“Amy’s pregnant.” Sheldon breathes, and he sounds so excited that Sophie can’t help but smile. “and I’m nervous. I’m not great with change, but I am with experiments, so I’ve devised a list of parameters to vary along the way to see how Baby Cooper reacts to stimulus.”  
“Oh god,” Sophie laughs as she taps her pencil to her lips, “Baby Cooper.” She keeps it on in the background as she finishes her homework. She doubts she’ll keep listening; she has no desire to learn how many kicks baby cooper gave _based on mom’s grain intake._ Still, its nice background noise, and apparently her father has a way of monologueing that is soothing. __

She blinks, startled by the silence after the first recording. Well, no harm in listening to another. She still has more homework to do. Maybe she’ll listen to a few random ones on her morning runs before giving the box to mom to throw away. 

“Apparently, we cannot name the baby Hailey because Howard and Bernadette’s girl is Halley, which is a ridiculous notion. Obviously baby Cooper will be a far superior baby and should have had naming rights established. Still, Amy is 50% of the genetic code, and I cannot overrule this.” Sophie chuckles as she jogs in place, waiting for a car to pass by. She’ll have to tell Halley at the run this weekend that Sheldon almost named her that. “Still, I have come up with potential names for baby Cooper, regardless of gender. I will list them and their reasoning now.” 

She’s touched that this much effort went into her name. She smiles as she enters the running trail, waving to her neighbor before resting to stretch. 

"Ada, after Lovelace.” Her father starts. He must be writing; she can hear it in the background. He details a few reasons but Sophie shakes her head.  
“I could not be an Ada,” she scrunches up her nose. “Ada,” she tries it out on her tongue but shakes her head. 

“Adam,” He laughs, a little breathy huff. “Get it.” She starts off running again. “because it sounds like atom?” he laughs again and she shakes her head with a laugh.  
“God Sheldon, you’re such a nerd.” She laughs. Thank goodness she’s not an Adam. She couldn’t stand him laughing every time he thought of her name. 

He goes through a dozen more for each gender, a few she would have hated, like Mary and Isaac, some that sounded alright, like Nikola and Alex, and honestly, she would have loved being a Rosalind. Rosa as a nickname, and the history of DNA in her name. 

“As she’s obviously been gifted with the right DNA,” Sheldon states, and Sophie is comforted in the fact that he must have loved mom like she loved him. That’s good. Mom’s been moping for months, been half there for years, at least Sheldon seems worth it. This version of him. The tape ends without Sophie coming up, so she wonders how her name came to be. 

“Edit: Baby Cooper is a girl.” Sheldon says, a second later, during an obviously later addition to the tape. 

At home, she renames this file so she can find it again if she needs to. She’ll probably keep this one after she deletes the rest. She’ll have to remember to mark the good ones so she can keep them. 

... 

“Do you think I could be a Rosa?” she asks her friends at lunch, and her friends laugh as they shake their heads.  
“No way. That sounds like such an old name.”  
“Not retro though,” Another inputs, “like Alfred.” Sophie playfully pushes them with a laugh.  
“It was just a thought, whatever.” 

... 

“How’d you choose my name, mom?” Sophie asks as soon as they pull away from the school.  
“Your dad did.” Mom answers, shifting her wedding band around her finger. “He was so excited when he found out I was pregnant.” She laughs, and Sophie smiles. “Sheldon came up with a whole table of names. Who had them before, what they meant, nicknames that could come from them, if there was any way to make fun of it.”  
“Make fun of my name?” Mom huffs.  
“Be glad you’re popular.” She laughs. “Sheldon Cooper is a smelly pooper; that’s what they called your dad.” Sophie explodes into laughter.  
“No way!”  
“Oh yeah. I’ve had some names myself, not that I care to share.”  
“Oh come on, moooooom,” Sophie pleads, but mom just shakes her head.  
“Maybe next time.” Mom pauses. “I said no to all of his suggestions, at first. I couldn’t stand naming you Rosalind or Gregor. I wanted something simpler or smoother, something that didn’t make it obvious we were scientists. I also didn’t want to name you after some other scientist, hoping the name would make you great when I knew you would make you great.”  
“I like Rosa,” Sophie confesses, and mom smiles.  
“Rosa is nicer, but I liked Sophie. He came back to me with that. Just the one name and I knew it was yours.”  
“Why did he choose Sophie?”  
“I don’t fully know. I liked the name so much I didn’t want to know anything about it that could taint it for me. Eventually, I had to listen to loud music while he told me, because I couldn’t just not know.” She laughs again, and Sophie knows she’s missing something. She just hopes its on the audio files. 

“Sophie,” Sheldon breathes into the mic, and it sounds melodious to her ears. She stops running and walks, pressing the buds down further into her ears to capture every sound. She’s been waiting for this file for a week, running through them constantly to get answers. “A new edition to the Baby Cooper naming table.” She can hear a marker on a whiteboard and she would give anything to see that. “Sophie is of Greek origin, which is a plus. It means wisdom. It would mean that she would be wise, but it also means that I need to be wise. There were a lot of mistakes I’ve made in my life. Less than others for sure, but still, it is a nonzero number. When it comes to baby Cooper, it has to be a zero number. I have to be better for her.” There are a few seconds of silence, and Sophie shuts her eyes tight. “It would be a connection to Sophie Germain, Sophie Turner, and Sophie: the musician from the two thousand teens. It also bears relation to Sophie’s world, a novel pertaining to philosophy, and Sophie’s choice, a novel pertaining to the holocaust.” 

He continues, and Sophie starts to tear up. 

“The name Sophie would be a reminder to me. In times when I am angry, or frustrated, of disappointed, that I promised to be wise. I promised to be better for her.” 

She loves it. She renames the file. 

“Sheldon get off that thing!” her mom yells suddenly, and Sophie almost stumbles on the trail in shock.  
“Today is a remarkable day indeed,” her father’s giddy voice comes through as Amy is groaning in the background. “Amy is going into labor. Sophie is coming.”  
“Sheldon!” Mom calls again, and the recording stops. 

Continues. 

“We are at the hospital now,” he gives the day and time. Doing some mental math, Sophie grimaces. Mom was in labor for a long time. His technical information is betrayed by the excitement in his voice. He estimates her height and weight with details of how his experiments led to this. 

"Is this a recording for future Sophie to listen to?” She hears Aunt Penny interrupt.  
“No, of course not.” Sheldon says. “This an experimental log of Baby Sophie’s progress.”  
“Something is familiar about this.” Leonard says and Sheldon affirms it.  
“Yes, we dealt with this when experimenting”  
“Playing,” Howard corrects.  
“with Halley and Neil. Your exact words were “Oh my god. This is my entire childhood” and “It’s like word for word.” While we performed a stimulus test.”  
“Huh.” Leonard says “and you don’t see a problem with that?”  
“I see a problem.” Bernadette says, and Howard attempts to placate her in the background.  
“They were more games than experiments, I swear.” 

“You are tainting my recording.” Sheldon says, and she hears rusting in the background.  
“Hey baby Sophie.” Aunt Penny says. “We’re all so excited to meet you. Amy is in there having a grand old time. Sheesh. Been there done that, only doing it once.” That’s a lie. Penny and Leonard have 4 children. “Seriously. Your dad may seem like a bit much at times, but we’ve really seen him do so much research to make sure you could grow up to be the best you possible.”  
“It’s true,” Uncle Leonard confirms. “When it came to your name, he made an entire spreadsheet before picking the best ones to make a table on to show your mom. I’m sure it’ll be the same for your school and your lunch options.” They continue to talk about her dad. It’s amazing, getting to see him through the eyes of his friends. When it wasn’t sad to talk about his brilliance and his habits. 

Howard informs her that dad and mom are together waiting for her, and the rest of them take turns filling up the space with advise for her, stories about her dad, and detailing the future they imagine for her. She can tell they stayed all night and put random thoughts into the file. 

“He’s thoughtful in a way that surprised me.” Penny says. “I was trying to be an actress when I met him, and though he never fully got behind that idea, he was always there when I had money trouble, business ideas, or when I went to college. It was something I couldn’t even tell Leonard about.” 

“Your dad saved my life.” Leonard says. “We were living in our apartment together when I decided to use rocket fuel I was working on to power a 3 stage rocket Howard designed.” She hears muttering in the background about Joyce and Kim. “You know what. I’ll tell you all about that when you’re older. The part you need to know, is your dad bravely took that bubbling container out of my hands and me out of the way before it blew up.” He ends up detailing most of the story anyway, and wow, for someone so smart – that was pretty dumb.  
“We didn’t have a working elevator for a long time.” Raj says. “like 12 years.”  
“Not only did your dad save my life, he didn’t rat me out to the landlord, or the police, or homeland security.” 

“With no job, and a research stall, I was a short time away from being deported to India.” Uncle Raj says. “My visa required a job, and I didn’t have one. I looked for other jobs but there was no way it was going to work in time and a lot of jobs need clearances.” He pauses. “Your dad had extra money rolling in for a grant, money he could have used for a team of students or to buy an experimentalist’s time at another university. Instead, he gave me a job.” 

“I don’t want you to think he was perfect though. He’s kind of an ass. Your dad and I had a lot of fights.” Howard says, “I tried to take one of his classes. Ugh. I don’t envy you” He laughs. “I’d hate to have that to live up to as a father.” He jokes about homework help and it would be funnier if he ever helped her with homework. “We also had a fight over a parking spot!” He continues to detail a real side of her father that she’d never know without this. The not so great side. “Although, he does love us all in his way. When it came to money, or babysitting, or time; if it was serious, he was there. Once he brought a couch cushion all the way to campus to apologize to me, so there’s that.” 

“I’m gonna be your big sister.” Halley says, the next morning minutes before she is born. “I’m going to be your best friend.” Sophie grins. Promise kept.  
“Can mommy say something to baby Sophie too?”  
“Okay!” Bernadette starts to speak, but stops at the gasps all around her.  
“You’ll wanna hear this.”  
“This just in,” Dad says, “Sophie is here. I’m a father.” She hears his friends cheering and congratulating him and Halley’s mom keeps recording the whole thing. 

Sophie feels warm and happy all day. 

"Sheldon Cooper. Day 365, the first birthday.” He opens, and Sophie can’t help but giggle.  
“Sheldon!” She hears Mom call, “are you coming?”  
“In a minute,” he calls back away from the speaker. “Okay. There is a tradition in Asian cultures called the birthday grab.” He explains. “While I believe such superstitions to be poppycock, I must admit I am rather curious as to what baby Sophie will choose.” He goes on for another minute to explain how he chose the items and what they represent. “I will return to this after the birthday party.” 

Sophie wished he recorded part of it, but he didn’t. Maybe she’ll ask mom if they did. 

“Here is round 1, career.” He says, and there is silence for a few seconds. “Aha! A scholar. For reference, she chose the book “Oh the places you’ll go,” by Dr. Seuss.” Sophie laughs. He goes on to detail the items she did not choose, like a dollar bill and a hairclip. “Round 2, Hobby.” He goes on to list the items he spread out – all equidistant from the baby’s start position. “Drat.” He huffs, “she’s eating her shoe. Teething,” He hisses, as if it’s become a nemesis of his. There is rustling over the recording, and at some point, baby Sophie starts wailing. 

She hears her father cooing over her, and he must be talking to her in low whispers, because she can make out the sound of his voice underneath her crying. Finally, she calms, and she hears Dad picking up the voice recorder.  
“Hobby was shoe, and I’m not sure what that means. We will return to this. Round 3.” 

Sophie laughs at the image she conjures in her head. This very room over a decade ago. Her and Dad crawling on the floor with random items to tell her future. She makes her way over to the box and lifts the cover. 

He kept them. Every item she picked that day is in the box. Her book, her shoe, a magnifying glass, a vial of salt, a dollar coin, and a white silk glove. 

“Final round, Sheldon or Amy.” Sophie already can guess she picked mom, based on the glove in the box. She slides it over her hand and turns it over. It’s beautiful, if not a bit over the top, which describes her mom perfectly. Over the tape, Sheldon congratulates her on her choice.  
“Sophie can already tell her mother is going to be an integral part of her life.” He pauses “well, according to this hokum.” Sophie laughs. 

“I’m thinking of ordering takeout.” Mom says on the other side of her door, knocking as she does so.  
“Come in.” Sophie calls, and turns to face her mother, who is staring at her hand.  
“Where did you get that?” she asks, forgoing dinner questions.  
“There was a box with my name on it,” Sophie explains. “There was a whole bunch of stuff in it.” She hands her mom the box, hesitant to part with it, but she shakes her head.  
“No, no, you can keep it. I still have the other one, um.” She traces a ridge on the glove with her fingers. “I wore this on my wedding day.”  
“I’m sorry,” Sophie says.  
“Everyone hated my wedding dress at first. I was going to return it. He walked into our apartment and said wow. No one had said that about me before. He told me I looked beautiful.” Sophie hugs her mom as she starts to cry, “like a pile of swans.”  
“Can you tell me about the wedding?”  
“I’d love to.” 

“Baby’s first contract,” Her dad says, proudly. “Let me read it out loud before you sign it.” As he reads the contract, Sophie makes her way over to the box of items and finds it. She reads it along with him. It’s a terrible contract, all things considered, and it details all the things she has to do for his love. Things like call him dad, go to mom for boo boos, let him pick appropriate cartoons to watch and more. It’s sweet in its own way. Instead of reading ahead, she lets him read it to her. She finds herself crying through parts of it. She hasn’t done her part, but he hadn’t done his. He wasn’t there to take her to her first day of middle school, he was in the hospital. She couldn’t save him her first high school father daughter dance because he couldn’t walk at the time. He certainly can’t be at this one. She wipes her eyes angrily, and traces the crayon mark through the center softly. 

“Now you sign here.” He says, “and I’ll sign here.” The recorder fumbles. “Crayon? I suppose crayon will work for your first contract, but don’t be getting ideas for the future little missy!” He laughs, “now sign here-or I guess that works.” He laughs again, genuine and loud, not the intake of air she’d heard before. “Oh no no no, no coloring here. This is serious legally binding stuff.”  
“I don’t think she’s of legal age to sign a contract,” her mother interrupts with a laugh. Sophie smiles. In the recording she squeals as Sheldon’s begins to respond, but the recording stops short of the family moment.= 

She renames the files. 

Sophie feels happy, but empty. She’d had these moments, but she can’t remember them. She turns back to her homework and finishes it all before heading downstairs for dinner. She watches her mom eat and realizes that she’s been struggling too. After dinner is done and she washes up she sits on the couch. 

“Mom! Mom,” she sings and her mom smiles at her,  
“Yes?”  
“Sit, sit!” she does and Sophie starts brushing her hair. She can tell it’s working because her mom finally relaxes. She starts separating the hair, preparing to French braid it and asks.  
“Can you tell me more about dad?”  
“I can do that.” Mom says, voice thick.  
“I heard he liked contracts.” Sophie prompts, and Mom laughs.  
“He made me sign a relationship agreement when we first started dating!” she starts, “and that was one of many.” Her mom details all the lengths Dad and Uncle Leonard went to over contracts, how she and Sheldon wrote their first one, and how he kept them all until he died. 

“Once,” she starts, “He signed a contract with you.”  
“Tell me about it,” Sophie prompts, and mom does. 

“Dad,” she mumbles in bed that night, she pretends, “Can you read me a bedtime story?” she hits play.  
“My little Sophie, my Higgs Boson,” He starts again, “This is a contract outlining…” 

“It’s,” Her father’s voice sounds tired, much more like how she remembers it. “January, um 4th for the new year.” Which year, she wants to ask, but she knows he can’t answer. She continues running, trying to keep her breathing even. “I’ve,” he sighs, and she can hear the tears in his voice. “I’ve accepted that I’m going to die.” He muffles a sob, and Sophie stops running; starts crying. Her dad was amazing, and she missed all of it. 

He goes on to explain just what a brain tumor can do, and how he’d taken time off to try and research the disease himself, since he would be able to figure out more than the doctor who has an MD with his PhD. Turns out he couldn’t. The tumor is still there, and growing, and inoperable. 

“It was the headaches that led me to the doctor in the first place. They will persist. It will get worse from there. Now this becomes all about leaving something behind for others rather than myself. That is alright.” He takes a breath “It will have to be alright.” 

Sophie hears the sound of a bed creaking and instinctively knows he went to see her. At one point she brought him comfort about this, instead of resenting him for being sick. 

“You bring me comfort here. More than my Nobel, I am proud to leave you behind. I know you are the something great I do for the world.” Rustling.  
“Dad?” Sophie hears herself.  
“Hey, Sophie.” He says softly.  
“What’s wrong?”  
“Nothing, I was just coming to check on you.”  
“Okay.” Her younger self accepts. “Make sure to go sleep. You need sleep.” More rustling. 

“I am angry that I will not get to see my Sophie grow up.” He says next, and she wonders how long he took before rerecording. “Will she remember me? Will she know me as I am, or will she only know the shell I am going to become?” He asks, turning off the recording, and Sophie is left in silence with her answer. 

She rushes through her homework so she can set it aside. This is more important. 

“My father died when I was a child, and it was a disaster.” One of the recordings starts. She’s stopped listening to new ones on runs, saving them for the slot between homework and bed, where she has the emotional space to process them. Something I only got to know the full extent of as an adult, as I talked to Georgie about what happened when he passed.” He pauses. “It took me a long time to realize what a great man my father was.” This message is more scattered. More sentence fragments than coherent flow. Emotional. She can tell he is in pain. “What will she know of me?” He asks at the end of the message. 

“Sophie,” The next one opens, and she knows its directed to her and not about her. “Hi, it’s dad.”  
“Dad,” she mumbles.  
“I don’t know how long anything is going to take.” He starts, “It could be days, years, decades. It seems in this, medicine is not an exact science. I don’t know if you’ll ever hear this, or need to hear this, but I need to make it. Hopefully, Amy will get this to you when the time is right if you need it.”  
“I’m listening,” she whispers.  
“In case you don’t get to know who I am, let me introduce myself to you.”  
“Okay.”  
“I thought the greatest thing to happen to my life was initially Leonard. Oh, don’t tell him, but before him I was a mess. Sure I was smart, and I was very accomplished, but that was all I was, and I was dooming myself to be a lonely genius. After him I met the whole group: Raj and Howard, Penny and Bernadette, Stuart and Wil, and of course, Amy. I had friends for the first time. I had dreams beyond science. For the first time in my life, somewhere other than Meemaw was home.” 

Sophie smiles at that. She’ll have to call Leonard. 

“Then I knew it was Amy, oh your mother brought me joy I didn’t know I could have. I spent so long on the edge of my friend group, and it was more than I ever had, but with Amy. Amy showed me the universe beyond Earth’s front door. I took my toothbrush and my towel,” he laughs, she’ll have to ask mom why that’s funny, “and was ready to follow her anywhere.” He pauses. “Scientists are often wrong, and I was. The greatest thing that happened to me was you.” 

It’s here that they change. Instead of being about her, they are to her. She listens intently, and repeatedly, drinking in the messages of her father she had been denied in her memory. She renames them all, already knowing she could never delete any of these, even the mundane ones that came before. They are all her father, and she cannot let him go. 

“Dying is a part of life. Everyone is going to die someday. I just thought I’d have more time.” He says during one of them. “I always knew I’d donate my body to science, so I know I’ll be cremated. Ideally, I’d like to go to space, but the technology isn’t really affordable yet. I doubt Amy will be able to let me go.” 

It’s true, she has him in a jar in the bedroom right next to his glasses. She wasn’t able to let him go before all of this either. 

“It’s fine. Whatever can bring her comfort in the end is what matters. I’m not naïve enough to believe in an afterlife, or that there is a heaven I can watch you from. I wish there were.” 

His funeral was small. Mom said he would have preferred it that way. “He never liked crowds.” She’d said. His friends were there with their children and they shared stories that seemed bizarre. Schedules for takeout, eternal dibs, a roommate that sounds like a nightmare. A few celebrities showed up, even though she didn’t know who any of them were. Grandma was there, holding her and praying as if that would make anything better. Meemaw was there. She was cursing a lot. Uncle Georgie punched a wall. 

“What do you want to do now, Honey?” Aunt Penny had asked.  
“I want to go back to school.” Sophie responded, not wanting to miss all of the first day.  
“You would.” She replies through tears.  
“Come on girl, let me take you.” Uncle Georgie said. She was silent the whole ride and pretended she didn’t see him crying. 

She goes through her phone’s contact to see she doesn’t have Uncle Georgie’s number. She’ll ask mom for it in the morning. She sees Uncle Leonard’s number and hits call without thinking about it. 

“Sophie? What’s going on? Are you okay?” Oops. It’s really late. Isn’t it?  
“I’m okay.” She responds, but she can hear how watery her voice sounds.  
“What’s wrong?” He asks, and she can hear him moving around.  
“Can you-Can you tell me about dad?” She asks, hating how she’s already crying.  
“Yeah,” He responds “Yeah, I can do that.” 

The experimental log has become more of a journal, and Sophie could not be happier about it. She drinks in this newfound person she knows. She listens, she cries, she renames the file and moves on. She’ll come back to them all, but for right now she needs to finish them. 

“I had a lot of quirks before, and I needed them. I have trouble, with people, always have. The social skills that come easy to others have always evaded me, even now. It took years to get a decent handle on sarcasm, and I’m still not sure I’ve got it.” 

“I always envied the social awareness your Aunt Penny possesses.” Dad continues, “I often misinterpret how others are feeling. I had trouble telling if others are laughing at me or joking with me, or if people were in bad moods in general or angry with me specifically. I often created problems within my friend group and missed opportunities because I misread situations. It’s always been a stressful part of my life, ever since I was young. Once I stopped talking to a dear childhood friend for decades over something meaningless.” He laughs. 

“His name was,” Dad pauses, clears his throat. “Um, his name.” Her dad stumbles through for another 20 seconds. Sophie feels like she is in physical pain. This is much closer to what she knows, and its breaking her heart to have the pieces connect. “I don’t usually forget things.” He says. “I used to be able to recall everything.” He pauses. “I’m sure it’ll come to me. The doctors say confusion is part of the process.” 

The process, he says, like he’s not _dying._ Sophie clutches her pillow to her chest. 

“Anyway,” Sheldon continues, and Sophie listens, but all she can hear are the cracks in the walls. “I can’t lie either.” 

...

“The glasses are helping,” Dad opens one day. “Your mother is right, as always. I put you to bed today,” He pauses. “You seemed to realize that something is wrong. I don’t want to lie to you, but I don’t know how to tell you I’m dying. I took a sabbatical from the university. I don’t know if I’ll be returning, but at this point it could go either way.” 

It doesn’t. 

“I’ve been having trouble with perception.” He says, and this she remembers too. “I keep bumbing into things” he pauses. “bumping.” He turns off the recording and returns to it later. 

“I love you. I don’t know if I say it enough or if I said it enough but I hope you know.” He sighs. “I must’ve said it to you over a hundred times today. Today I tried to make you happy, because a day is coming where I’m going to make you sad.” 

She remembers that. After school they got ice cream. They did everything she could ever want, and all he did was say I love you to her. He gave her so many kisses. She scrambles over her bed to her desk and tries to remember that day. She writes what she can remember. A memory she has both sides of, when her dad was there and they had all the time in the world. 

She connects his ramblings now with the man she remembers. She sees his struggle in a new way. His messages become more scattered. More random. Still she has to hear every one of them. 

“I’ve kept a box with all the items that meant the most to me as your father.” He says. “I know I recorded what they meant at some point.” Meaning he can’t remember them now. She holds the box in front of her. “Oh, I remember this, your cute shoes. Bernadette picked these out for you. Our first contract.” He goes through the ones he remembers. 

This is a new form of torture. 

“Are you okay?” Her mother asks, almost every day now.  
“Yes, I’m okay” she lies, the way they lied to her. 

She rushes through school to get home. She stops going for runs and doing homework. It’s a waste of time because dad is right here and she has to remember before she forgets. 

“I’m going to the hospital now.” He says slowly, as if unsure of the words. “I don’t think I’ll be back. This is my last log.” His voice opens as she listens in bed. 

That’s not entirely true, as there are 3 files left. Only three more times that she gets to hear her dad’s voice. Like an addict she is desperate to go through them, knowing there is pain ingrained in each byte of data. Knowing that once it is over, she can never get it back. 

“Sophie, you have to get out of bed, you’re going to be late for school.” Her mom opens her door to stare at her.  
“I can’t go to school, mom. I have a stomach ache.” She can’t lie very well, something she now knows she gets from her father and her mom isn’t buying it. Sophie doesn’t care. She needs to stay. She needs to listen.  
“Your teachers called, they said-”  
“I don’t care!” She yells. She repeats it. She cries. She screams. Mom rushes over to hold her and she sobs into mom’s chest. “What’s the point?” she sobs. “What’s the point of being so smart if you could just die!”  
“Honey,” Mom coos, rubbing the back of her head. She sobs for him. For Dad. A man she only got to know after the fact.  
“Dad’s dead.” She cries, months after his passing. 

Today she finishes the files. Thousands of files and she’s burned through them all. 

Mom is at work for the rest of the day, so she has time to listen and cry and then shower. The length is only 5 minutes for the first. 4 for the second. The last one is half an hour, the only pre-named file. 

“I love you Sophie. I hope you always know this.” He opens, and she is already crying. “I’m close now. I feel it in my body. The weariness is,” He stops. He’s silent for a long time and she listens to it. 

“Say something,” she begs, but he doesn’t. The clock ticks away and the message ends without another sound. She screams, betrayed, and renames the file a mishmash of keys because of course she’ll keep it, even if its nothing but her father’s breathing 

She’d give anything for her father’s breathing. 

“You came to see me today.” Her father sounds distressed. Labored. Slow. “I’m sorry.” He’s crying. Recording stops. Continues. “I love you and I can see I’m not.” Stops. Continues. “Not what you need.” He slurs, almost to the point of unrecognition.  
“Sheldon,” She hears Mom call, gently. “Don’t strain yourself. You need to rest. You’ll be okay.”  
“You’ll” Dad is stuck on the word, dragging it out and marring the sound.  
“I’ll take care of Sophie. Yes. Always.” He struggles on his thanks. You can hear Mom crying. 

Stops. Continues. 

“This is Leonard.” His voice is numb. “Sheldon’s had a brain bleed. He won’t be continuing these anymore.” 

Sophie sits. Numb. 

The brain bleed. The one that took dad from barely there to not there. 

It’s over. 

... 

There is one last file. 

“Hello my love,” Dad starts, sounding healthy. “I’m making this because I know what’s coming. I’ve been researching this for weeks and as much as it pains me to admit it: my doctor is right. We’ll talk about it tonight, I know. I’m going to make a recording for Sophie explaining this all to her in case” He stops, unable to say it. “Well, please see that she gets it when the time is right.” Stops. Continues. 

“Amy Farrah Cooper,” He says fondly. “Amy Farrah Fowler.” Sophie hits stop and takes her earbuds out. This one is not for her. She’ll give it to Mom tonight. She’ll explain everything she’s been doing, if Mom hasn’t already figured it out. Then they’ll process together. She’ll have to start moving on and letting go: to mourn. 

The file is already named My Love, so she leaves it. She scrolls through the audio files, everything Dad has left her, and lets herself cry. Thankfully, they are still in order, so she can listen to them again later. 

She showers, she makes lunch. She finally pulls out homework that she is so behind on. This is the type of thing Dad lived for. She scrolls through the recordings and hits play. 

“Today is Sophie’s first day of school,” Dad starts, “and she’s going to be brilliant.” 


End file.
